in which His good pleasure was absent.”

The husband answered, “I did nothing.”

She said, “If you will not speak the truth and tell me, I will no longer remain in your house; you shall never see me again, nor I you.”

He replied, “Know, then, that earlier today a woman came to my shop. I made a gold bracelet for her. She stretched out her arm and I slipped the bracelet onto her forearm. I was bewildered by the whiteness of her hand and the grace of her wrist, and these lines of the Mathnawī came to mind:

Around her arm a bracelet of purest gold was bright,
Like fire that flashes over running water’s light.
Can water ever cross the mind’s far-reaching sphere
Yet speak with tongues of flame that men can hear?

Then I took her hand, squeezed it, and twisted it.”

The wife exclaimed, “Allāhu akbar! Why would you act like that? No wonder the man who has been coming into the house for thirty years without the slightest hint of betrayal took hold of my hand today, squeezed it, and twisted it!”

The husband said, “Grant me amān (safe-conduct), noble lady, for what has come from me; declare me absolved.”

She replied, “We ask Allah to bring our affair to a good conclusion.”

The next morning the water-carrier came and said, “Release me from blame, for Satan led me astray and tempted me.” She answered, “Go on your way, for the fault was not truly yours; it belonged to the man in the shop, and Allah has exacted His due from him in this world.”

In just this way a woman should be with her husband—her outward and inward selves in harmony—content with little if he cannot afford much, and following the example of ʿĀʾisha and Fāṭima, may Allah be pleased with them, the women of Paradise, as the following story makes clear.

Story: Fāṭima—peace be upon her—used to turn the hand-mill until her fingers bled. One day she complained of this to her husband, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah ennoble his face—